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Supporting Community Health Workers

World Vision is currently engaged in a wide range of community health activities worldwide, many of which draw on the efforts of community health workers or CHWs. CHWs are community-based members who have been trained to deliver basic health services but who do not hold a professional health qualification. Whilst the roles and cadres of CHWs vary widely between programmes and countries, there are some central principles that can be applied to ensure that the projects will be established with quality, sustainability and effectiveness, regardless of the programme model that the CHWs are delivering.

What are World Vision's programme approaches?

World Vision’s Timed and Targeted Counselling (ttC) Project Model for community based volunteers, groups and community health workers is now a core model for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programming, designed to promote healthy practices at the level of the individual and their immediate family through a scheme of home visits. TTC was developed to align with World Vision’s 7-11 strategy, which seeks to strengthen and consolidate our health programming through a package of high impact interventions to improve child wellbeing including 7 interventions during pregnancy and 11 interventions for the child up to 2 years of age, delivered in an integrated lifecycle approach.

2ND EDITION LAUNCH:

New evidence is emerging, particularly around interventions such as chlorhexidine cord cleaning for the newborn, improvements to prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and paediatric HIV, early child development, and maternal mental health.

In the 2nd edition, the new material includes improved tools for DME, supportive supervision, guidance on adaptation of the model, and condensed versions of household handbooks and storybooks. It also includes practical standards for implementation of ttC and accompanying ‘methods’ manual, in which the behaviour change methodology unique to ttC is comprehensively defined.

Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM)is a strategy to train, support, and supply CHWs to provide diagnostics and treatment for multiple illnesses specifically pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria for sick children of families with difficult access to case management at health facilities.

World Vision’s global mHealth portfolio currently supports frontline health workers (FLHWs) in projects across 18 countries in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Click here to learn about this game-changing initiative and get information about country deployments that support our Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Nutrition programming.

Stories of impact

JERUSALEM-WEST BANK-GAZA: "Confusion is what I used to feel. Before this project, I used to hear different stories about infant care and feeding practices, but now I'm so happy I'm not confused any more! I have one source of information that I can rely on, and I really can see the impact of that on my child." - A mother from a targeted village in Bethlehem... Read more

AFGHANISTAN: World Vision’s Better Health for Afghan Mothers and Children (BHAMC) will contribute to sustained improvements in maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes in Karukh, Zindajan, Kohsan and Chest-i-Sharif districts in Herat Province... Read more

SIERRA LEONE: Armed with their new mobile phones, CHWs are empowered to provide better care for people in their communities and save lives while also working faster and with greater ease. In the words of Augustine Tyre, an mHeath Project Coordinator in Sierra Leone, “Other CHWs are seeing the impact the mobile phones are making, and almost every day they are asking when they can be trained and given phones.” Read more